


Lost by an echo

by abtagrl



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Reggie and the Full Effect
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:13:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abtagrl/pseuds/abtagrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the work that I created for Bandom_Meme's fic exchange, in which RubyTuesday5681 prompted "Dewees/Alicia. Bonding while visiting their hometowns in Missouri together"... This is almost, but not quite, that story. (Divorce-centric, and James' past is mentioned more than once.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost by an echo

**Author's Note:**

> I tried for you, bb, and I hope this is something that works for what you had in mind. I have all of the feels in the world for Alicia, and I have been a Get Up Kids fangirl for over a decade, so this is kind of a mishmash of all of my heartsick feels and hopes. I sincerely hope you enjoy this ♥ Extra thank you to akamine_chan for running this whole wonderful shebang! (also, title comes from GUK's "Out of Reach")

"I just- I need a break. I need to get away from here. Everything, _everything_ is ours, and I have no idea how I'm going to wake up every morning from here on out with just me and my things. I don't know how not to be us anymore." Alicia's voice is hushed and hurried, and James wants to ask her where she is right now; if she's sitting in the driveway of her and Mikey's house - or, rather, now just Mikey's house - or if she's in her car, at a Starbucks, sitting outside of her gym. He wants to ask, but he doesn't see how the question has any relevence, not without admitting to Alicia just how worried about her he is, not without admitting just how close to home all of this is hitting him. He doesn't know how to say _take care of yourself like I couldn't_ without it coming off as preachy.

James hears her sigh down the line then, and he gets it, he really, really does. He sighs back, clicking his tongue at her as he hears her light up a cigarette, and he tells her, "I been there, kid... them's the pits." It seems like a mockery once the words are hanging between them, but James can't take the words back now. He waits a beat, then two more, before he clicks his tongue again and tells her, "Trust me, Leesh, I've- well, I haven't been down the _same_ road, but I've been on one just like it. You need to take care of yourself, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do, and you gotta keep living your life. You can't let this ruin who you are."

From anyone else, the words would feel hollow, but from James... Alicia thinks he maybe has a point.

 

It's nearly a week later before James hears from Alicia again. He's standing in line at Whole Foods when he gets a text that says _come home w/me?_. He thumbs out of the text, puts his phone back in his pocket, and then he pays for his groceries and goes out to his car. Once he's in the driver's seat, James pulls out his phone and calls Alicia.

"Hey, did you get my text? What do you say?" Alicia says, picking up her phone halfway through the first ring.

"What're you talking about?"

"I'm flying home to Missouri, I need to have a few weeks to just, you know, live. Be me. I want to go see the old digs, take some time away, come back and take on the world after I get some rest." She sounds excited, or maybe hyper, and James can't help but think back to his divorce, about his methods of coping... he tells himself that Alicia is so much smarter than that.

James sucks air in through his teeth, and he drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Please?" Alicia asks. The one word is spoken so softly, so raw and open, that James can't help but miss the fire in her.

"Sure, let's go to the Heartland and find you, kid."

 

Leaving from opposite coasts, they split the time difference and find a way to get to Kansas City within a few hours of each other. When James' plane lands, he grabs his backpack and heads to the jetway. Once inside the airport, he turns on his phone and calls Alicia; the phone rings twice before James sees her, seemingly smaller than ever before, sitting folded up in a chair near his exiting terminal. He hangs up, pockets his phone, and starts towards her. It's weird, the way he can instantly pick her out from a thousand strangers, but, then again, it's Alicia. James sometimes could swear that he and Alicia have some sort of psychic bond, a kind of long-lost-twin way of looking at life.

"Hey, sunshine," James says, smiling crooked when Alicia stands up to hug him hardhardhard.

"Missed you, brother," she says into the collar of his shirt as she clings to him.

"You, too," he tells her, squeezing her back just as tightly. "Wife said to squish you extra hard for her, by the way."

Alicia laughs softly as they pull apart, and James gets his first real look at her in months. She looks like shit. It takes all of the tact in his body to not point it out.

"You need to pick up your baggage?" Alicia asks, shouldering a black leather purse and grabbing a duffel bag from the floor.

"Nah," he says, raising a shoulder, "got my stuff right here."

"Plebian," Alicia scoffs at him. "What's the point of ever making money if you're only going to wear one pair of shoes for the rest of your life?"

James just laughs. It's a decade long battle between them, an old-running joke, and James is relieved that, despite everything else, Alicia is still herself.

 

They pick up a rental car and head straight to Alicia's dad's house for a family dinner. It's quiet and hushed dinner, an uncomfortable silence hangs in the air. Alicia's dad has his hand over hers, cupping it on the table right in between their plates the entire time they eat dinner. Alicia's stepmom and brother start the small talk, asking James about the East and his wife and his music, and he does his best to keep the conversations going. It's awkward, he thinks, but he's nothing if not a pro at awkward situations by now.

Alicia stays at her dad's that night, and James checks into a tiny inn in town. He talks to his wife on the phone for an hour, thinking the entire time how lucky he is to have gotten a second chance, to have gotten a better life the second time around. It's something he thinks he should probably point out to Alicia too.

 

They spend three days together, visiting family and eating at their favorite mom and pop restaurants and talking about wrestling and construction and anything at all except LA, and when it's over... Alicia looks the exact same. It isn't a movie ending, she isn't miraculously healed, but when they're in the airport saying their goodbyes, she does pull James as close as she can and whisper, "It's only up from here, right?"

"Right," he tells her, kissing the hair on the top of her head, "you gotta hit the bottom first, baby, but you got this."

 

James gets a text from Alicia after a few days, and it says she's renting a house with Sarah. Sarah and Alicia, James thinks, makes more sense than anything else would right now. _when's the housewarming? ill fly out special just for you guys_ he texts to Alicia. _couple weeks. bring the wife. and some whiskey._ James laughs at the text, but when Alicia calls him two weeks later and tells him that she's throwing a party that weekend, he doesn't hesitate to book the flight.

When they get to Alicia and Sarah's new house, Alicia opens the door with a smile and pulls them both into a hug. She still doesn't look happy like she used to, but she looks better than the last time James saw her. It's definitely a new start, James thinks, and he's an expert on those.


End file.
